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Semolina Cakes

Semolina cakes are fried cakes made from a custard-like semolina mixture with cheese, then coated and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Semolina and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 325 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Semolina Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA fairly hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the semolina mixture

  1. Boil the milk with the butter and salt.

  2. Gradually add the semolina, stirring until it thickens like custard, about 15 minutes.

  3. Stir in the grated cheese and white pepper.

  4. Spread the mixture on a floured board and let it cool until solid enough to form cakes.

Coat and fry

  1. Coat the cakes in egg and breadcrumbs, or dip in batter.

  2. Fry the cakes until golden brown.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Semolina + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together325 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Semolina
Thickens the milk into a firm custard that sets as it cools, giving the cakes their body.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the semolina swells in and cooks into a creamy mass.
Grated cheese
Adds savoury flavour and richness to the mixture.
Egg
Binds the breadcrumb coating so it adheres to the cakes while frying.

The step that matters

Letting the mixture cool until solid. The semolina mixture must set firm before shaping; if it is still warm and soft, the cakes will not hold their form and may break apart in the pan.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, butter, semolina, cheese, flour, egg):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Jalapenofits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, semolina, cheese, flour, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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